An internal combustion engine is a machine that makes cars go by burning fuel like gasoline. It's the type of engine most cars have used for many years.
Term
EV road tax exemption
An EV road tax exemption means that if you own an electric car, you might not have to pay some taxes that regular car owners do. This helps make electric cars more affordable.
Term
core brands
Core brands are the main car brands that a company focuses on. For Volkswagen, these include their main cars like Volkswagen, Skoda, and SEAT.
The Volkswagen ID. Buzz is a new electric minivan that looks like the old VW buses from the past. It runs on electricity instead of gas, which is better for the environment. People are excited about it because it combines a classic design with modern technology.
The Renault 5 is a small electric car that many people in Europe are buying. It was launched in 2024 and has sold a lot of units, showing that it's very popular.
The Renault Twingo is a small car designed for city driving, first introduced in the early 1990s. It’s known for its fun and unusual shape, making it easy to park and drive around town. People talk about it because it's practical and has a lot of character for a small car.
The Renault 4 CV is a small car that was made in France a long time ago, from the late 1940s to the early 1960s. It was popular because it was affordable and easy to drive, helping many people own cars for the first time. People mention it because it has a cute old-fashioned look and is part of car history.
An EV battery warranty is a promise from the car maker that the battery in an electric car will work well for a certain number of years or miles. If it doesn't, they will fix or replace it for free.
Battery state of health tells you how well a battery is working compared to when it was new. If it's low, it means the battery isn't holding as much charge as it used to.
Term
refurbished batteries
Refurbished batteries are old batteries that have been fixed up so they can work again. They are made to be as good as new so they can be used in cars or other devices.
The Mercedes-Benz EQC is an electric SUV from Mercedes-Benz. It offers a luxurious experience and is designed to compete with other electric vehicles in the market.
A plug-in hybrid is a type of car that can run on electricity and gasoline. You can charge it by plugging it in, which allows you to drive on electric power for short distances before switching to gas.
The Volvo XC60 is a type of SUV made by Volvo. It's designed to be safe and comfortable, making it a popular choice for families.
Term
0-62 miles per hour
0-62 miles per hour is a way to measure how fast a car can go from a complete stop to 62 miles per hour. It's a standard way to show how quick a car is.
Car
Volvo X60
The Volvo X60 is a small luxury SUV that focuses on safety and comfort. It's designed to be easy to drive and has a lot of modern technology inside.
Car
Eki EV4
The Eki EV4 is another electric car that the Leap Motor B05 is trying to compete with, showing how many new electric cars are coming out.
Car
Leap Motor B05
The Leap Motor B05 is a new electric car that has a simple interior and can drive for 286 miles on a single charge, which is a good distance for most people.
A twin-turbo V8 engine is a type of engine that has eight cylinders and uses two turbochargers to make it more powerful. This helps the car go faster and use fuel more efficiently.
The Lotus Esprit is a stylish sports car that has a unique shape and is very light, which helps it go fast. It became famous partly because it appeared in James Bond movies. People talk about it because it's considered a cool and high-performance car.
The Honda Beat is a tiny sports car made by Honda in the 1990s. It's known for being fun to drive and is part of a special category of small cars in Japan called K-cars.
Car
Honda That Honda
The Honda Civic EF is a model from the 1990s that's part of the Honda Civic family. It's appreciated for being light and fun to drive, which is why many people like it.
The Honda S2000 is a small sports car that you can drive with the top down, like a convertible. It’s known for being really fun to drive because it can go fast and handles well. People talk about it because it's considered a great car for driving enthusiasts.
LIVE
Welcome to the Motoring Podcast, a weekly discussion of motoring news. This is episode 668 on Tuesday,
the 27th of January, 2026. Hello, I'm Alan and yes, he's not here this week. He's been
off doing UK Car of the Year judging panelist stuff, so he'll be back next week. It's
a little like last week where I was at a launch and then couldn't get back home
or anywhere reasonable in time to record. That's what's happened this week with Andrew.
Quick disclaimer at the start, if the audio is a bit rubbishy, not as good as usual. I'm really
sorry. I am in a hotel room, so it's not the usual setup and it's a Nordic hotel room,
so soft furnishings are in their absence, so everything's a bit echoey and there's a fan
that I can't stop and all sorts of stuff. I'm doing the best I can. Hopefully it will,
most of that will just disappear in the edit, but I'm getting my apologies in right now.
Anyway, this week I wonder how much more integrated one car group can actually get.
In new car news, you'll listen to me question if one car will actually be any good
and in point of interest, you'll be shown a new way to spend your money as if you need
any more if you are a car person. No follow up this week, so we're straight in to new news
and the first story is from evpowered.co.uk and don't forget that all the stories that we use
and all of our sources are listed in detail in our show notes every week, so if you want to
find out more about the topic, you can go to our website or you can look in your podcast player
and you can see the show notes and hopefully there should be a link which links you to it.
We definitely write the links in whether people strip them out is a different matter.
Anyway, Germany is going to put in an electric car ground to boost EV sales.
It's going to be between of up to 6,000 euros, so in total the amount available to spend is about
3 billion euros and when I say it's up to 6,000 euros, it's actually between one and a half
thousand euros and 6,000 euros and that's going to depend on the number of factors
and that includes the vehicle's size, the buyer's earnings and the size of their family.
So Andrew is all in favour of this, you know I've discussed this, he's all in favour of this
because there's a certain level of means testing that goes into this and as far as he's concerned
because this is his constant one and I don't disagree with him is that really lots of the
electric car ground just goes to helping rich people afford stuff that they would have bought
anyway or probably didn't need. Germany by the way is the UK's largest EV market. Volkswagen BMW
dominate the market there. In Volkswagen's case to the tune of 102,339 EVs last year and for BMW
51,878. Volkswagen's top sellers include the ID.7, ID.3 and ID.4 and ID.5 but EV sales in Germany
slumped to 27% of the market and the country has missed its EV sales targets on multiple occasions.
So this is an attempt to try and since they drive it in the right direction but that would
have been far too bad a pun even for me especially to make on purpose. So yes so this is going to be
introduced relatively soon. I mean there is a point there is a line at the end of this article.
Paradoxically Germany was one of the leading voices in lobbying the European Union to water
down its plan to end the sale of pure internal combustion engine cars by 2035.
So yes a bit of a turnaround by the German government on this one but you know it makes up
Germany's synonymous with building cars. One of the things about this grant by the way is
there doesn't seem to be any control in limiting where the money goes to you know it's not
it's not French level of protectionism here. So it doesn't have to be spent on French cars
or German cars in this case it can just be electric vehicles as far as we understand.
Oh one other little thing the German government has extended the German EV road tax exemption
through to December 2035. Next up staying in Germany and it's to Volkswagen.
Volkswagen is creating a new group board of management. Yes they have decided that they're
going to centralize their decision making even more. But this group board of management
only covers say its core brands. So it's for Volkswagen passenger cars
Skoda, Seacupra and Volkswagen commercial vehicles. And they are expecting this
restructuring to generate savings of one billion euros in production alone by 2030 partly through
the elimination of managerial positions. Now this puzzles me so the article here's from electrive.com.
There's this graphic PowerPoint slide further down which says brand group core board of management
and what it's showing is that there are the board of management is the brand CEOs as I said
Volkswagen passenger cars, Volkswagen commercial vehicles Skoda, Seacupra and then the brand group
core functions finance procurement production and technical development. Now this puzzles me
and this puzzles me because the whole shared services thing is it's been on the thing that
people have been doing for decade anyway in most industries and I thought that that Volkswagen
had done that. I thought they'd centralised their procurement. I thought they'd centralised some of
that stuff and it may well be that they have. What I see that's different here that I wouldn't
normally expect to see is production and technical development grouped in as one of the core
as two of the core functions. I would a bit of me would expect to see okay well
Volkswagen passenger cars does their production, Volkswagen commercial vehicles does their production,
Skoda does their production, Seacupra do their production similarly with technical development.
Well it actually seems if I put my little enterprise architecture consultant hat on
said okay what they've actually done is they've moved themselves to being far more
capability aligned and saying okay look here are the functions here these are
specific things that we as a business can do and we will then apply those individually to
to the appropriate brand as and where is necessary. A bit of a worry though if you've
got the same people doing all same development across multiple brands are they not all
going to start start feeling incredibly similar? Are they not going to become even more homogenous
than they already are and the other question is how on earth has Audi escaped this but I suppose
that Audi has its own little group of brands and that's why you don't see Bentley and you don't see
Ducati and you don't see Lamborghini on this particular chart but now some movement
taking place at Volkswagen I imagine the outcome will be job losses and well it said that already
really through managerial positions I think if you're on the factory floor the world is going
to shift above you you're not necessarily going to care somebody might give you a new t-shirt at
some point and that's that's where we'll go we'll keep an eye on it we'll see what happens
and whatever happens I hope it's a success anyway
Volkswagen has of course retained its post its place in Europe as being the largest car maker
but there's a new income up for number two whereas formally it was Toyota who was the
second largest car seller maker brand by volume then Renault has had a 7.4%
uptick in sales during 2025 and that now puts it at most popular car maker in Europe.
Bosses at Renault are attributing that mostly to the success of their multi-power train strategy
and the fact that they do have they have hybrids they have EVs they have pure internal combustion
engines as and where is appropriate. In Europe last year Renault sold 750,600 covers and 245,000
vans pushing them just over the million sales mark so yeah just above I mean Toyota and Lexus
sold 1.14 million sales so only a little bit behind only a little bit behind where Renault are.
Overall globally by the way Renault delivered 1.6 million vehicles so of course they've got
quite a big they've got they've still got a presence in South America obviously in Africa
in North Africa as well I'm sure across into the Middle East. Renault's full hybrid sales
were up 17% in Europe making 287,000 units the Symbios being a major contributor that
the EV sales sold by 72.2% so that made up just over a fifth of the total sales so that comes
a lot of success off the back of the Renault 5 supermini it's already sold more than 100,000
units since it was launched in 2024. It's not just the best-selling EV in Frankfurt so Europe's most
popular B segment EV according to Auto Car not a lot of B segment EVs but around but no that that's
great and they're looking forward to that continuing with the new Twingo, the Megane,
Renault 4 etc etc etc. I hadn't really seen a 4 in the flesh before this afternoon
well I had I'd seen it on the road but I hadn't seen anyone up close it turns out that
where I'm in Copenhagen there's a shopping centre just over there and there is a there is a Renault
brand centre there's a BYD one as well but there's a Renault one that caught my eye first
and they had a 5 or 4 and something else I can't remember what in there to show off that you
could go in and have a look around and I think you could arrange test drives and all that kind of thing
in there so yeah lots of lots of stuff going going on at Renault lots of lots of improvements
again introducing new vehicles in South Korea it was an 11.7% sales increase in markets outside
of Europe so yeah outside Europe 621,000 vehicles as well so pretty cool pretty impressive
well done Renault
I mentioned BYD a couple of minutes ago and actually I'd forgotten the next stories all
about them they have boosted their battery warranty so they now have BYD EVs
again eight year EV battery warranty it's eight years or 155,000 miles
the cover even it was previously 93,000 which is pretty good but the cover also includes
all the fully electric and the plug-in hybrid vehicles as well they claim on this or what the
actual this new increased limit means is that if the battery state of health drops below 70% in the
first 155,000 miles BYD will rectify and sort it completely free of charge
that's pretty impressive you know it's not that long ago that every bit that many Naysayers
were saying well if the battery goes in one of these things it's 25,000 pounds to replace it
which which is true if the battery that was coming out didn't have residual value
which they most definitely do especially as you know increase people are increasing
increasingly looking for power banks for homes and just domestic energy storage and all these
kind of things which is a perfect good second or even third life for some of these batteries
of course the batteries can be refurbished now but yes it's impressive their BYD
upgrading that if you wonder why the numbers seem funny it's eight years or 250,000 kilometers
and it is retroactive if you already have one of the vehicles with these batteries which pretty
much most of them most of the blade batteries so it's a dolphin surf dolphin seal at 02 at 03 seal
you in sea line seven then they're already covered by this and your warranty will extend as a result
so that's pretty good that's pretty impressive and yeah hopefully don't have to use it very much
or hopefully the owners don't have to use it very much but again that's a really great
thing to give people belief in the product and in the brand that's coming through it's one of
the challenges right at the moment I've said it before on the podcast that there are so many new
brands coming through entering the UK market how do you know which ones are going to be around in
four or five years this kind of thing helps it helps an awful lot one last new news story and
that is the announcement that Scotland has going to put further 85 million pounds of funding in for
EV incentives and charging that's all part of a wider 4.3 billion pounds to be spent on public
and a low carbon transport hopefully public low carbon transport will be included in all of that
people are really sure what that means the new draft budgets according to elect drive
simply states the government plans to invest 85 million pounds in low carbon programs including
expanding public EV charging infrastructure and supporting zero emission vehicles
nice statement it's great nobody really knows quite what that means yet but
yes the idea is that this sits alongside the 360 million pounds allocated for sustainable modes of
transport which is walking, wheeling and cycling for shorter journeys hopefully that means more
psychopaths in useful places as well sorry psychopaths are all very well but whenever
they're in a completely ridiculous place then they're not what's the point it's a waste of
money that's the rate it's like we say about charges it's having the right thing at the
end at the right time that's all of the new news for this week I think we've got a couple more
stories we wanted to keep over so we'll keep them cover them next week when the two of us are here
because because it's more interesting that way to be honest
so that may in a case it leads us into Gilman quick break in the show where we
ask for a Tad of financial support to keep the lights on and the hosting running if you
feel the motoring podcast is worth a small consideration every month and you can become a
patron different levels of patron include different levels of commitment from us to you including being
able to watch the show recorded live we also have a small range of merchandise in our spring
store from stickers to mugs and t-shirts if you don't have any spare cash and we completely
understand then you can help us by following for free from a podcast player to receive every
show as they're released and by liking and rating a show in whatever way your podcast
supply lets you if you've done all that and some of you do so thank you very much
then the last thing you can do is to recommend us to your friends or colleagues
and thank you to those of you who do and thank you to those of you who subscribe on on youtube
obviously patreon and etc etc it is we do see it we do appreciate it thank you very very much
new new car news then first up the new of volvo ex 60 it has a the headline figure here is that this
is this is all the new platform it doesn't really have any relationship with the previous
ex did i say xc i meant say ex 60 just in case i misspoke but it's on a new platform
which supposedly rena revolutionizes both the way volvo builds cars and their technological
capabilities that's either a great sounding sentence or it fills you with the fear
and i have no way to tell you which it should be the headline number though
it's 503 miles
yes that's quite far on one charge that is longer than most people's bladders
that apart from a few people of course on social media but you know 503 miles is really
is really pretty pretty impressive and that puts it well ahead of its chief rivals the bnw
ix3 and and things like the new missages benz glceq it doesn't come cheaper than that in
uk when spent around september prices are going to range from 56,850 pounds to 70,360 pounds
so yes it will be the electric equivalent to the x the xc 60 xc 60 will remain
on sale with mild and plug-in hybrids and power trains as well big worry about these
i don't know i need volvos volvos operating system and the technological part of this
that they do try and start to show off an awful lot and talk about an awful lot
it's been a problem lately people who bought
bought some of the smaller electric volvos have have discovered that and that was not a
great success been other challenges with with some screens crashing across the range for many years
i really hope this new platform includes includes kind of new infrastructure in a
new operating system for all of that and then there is a chance that it will work
um it's very hard to
it's very hard for us to recommend volvos to anyone because we've heard so many horror stories from
from real-life owners out there which have then been backed up by speaking to
most of my colleagues so i really really hope to fix that because this is a good-looking
thing it really is a good-looking thing you know it has the correct number of windows the
correct number of wheels but no joking apart it is it is a handsome handsome looking vehicle
it's about five meters long so it is fairly long and you know there's a lot of its structure
comes from the battery itself um somebody there's a joke here from from someone oh it's
hawkins samuelson the CEO of of of volvo um who says the car without batteries is a fred
flint stone car it's totally open um and that that helps with the safety and cost and all
sorts of other good things um there will be uh there will be uh standard the x60 there will
also be a cross country one uh with bespoke wheel design skid plates wind arches and a 20
millimeter suspension lift i really hope it uh i really hope it includes a little bit of cladding
in there because cladding is always good um also comes in a unique shade of frost green inspired
by scandinavian nature okay it's not a lot of green around at the moment but as well as the
cross country and there will be three other trims core plus an ultra um and they're also trying
to make the buying process as simple as possible so don't expect a whole load of options
expected to be some stuff waiting around that you can then basically buy from stock
a little bit towards the american style um as far as powertrains to achieve that kind of range
the rear driven p6 entry level vehicle uh comes with 369 horsepower and if you go for the p12
all-wheel drive which is the most powerful Volvo yet um then it's 671 brake horsepower uh means it's
as quick as an rs an odrs 3 to 62 miles an hour with just 3.9 seconds um mid rung there's a
mid rung in between that the p10 just 503 horsepower um yes which should be more than
more than most um other thing i'm just i've got some notes here from andrew too by the way because
you wrote all the show notes and it's like here's things i've been thinking about and so i got a bonus
epistle uh which i appreciate um uh it's pointing out the the the button free cockpit uh on the x60
we talked about it the other week um euro end cap are now going to crack down on this kind of
thing and and insist on buttons for many things so that's probably going to affect if you're a
end cap score if you don't like buttons then this will be fine for you if you do want some kind of
some kind of tactile um constantly located and findable by touch uh ui or user interface and
user experience then uh you probably would be a massive fan of that really interesting
to see what happens of course there's a paragraph here and said um uh i said volvo said that bring
gemini so that's google's ai engine into the car means drivers and passengers can have more
conversational interactions with the car rather than needing to remember specific q words and
instruction phases um and you can use it to find hotel bookings and email inbox for example
um while you can't just do that from your phone anyway and while you must do that when you're
driving is a completely different question it does question whether or not you're actually
concentrating on the whole driving and the roads type of thing anyway i shall now stop moaning
about all those and too much technology and all of that kind of thing um and i shall leap
towards the leap motor b05 um it's it's a competitor for the eki ev4 uh it once again
has a minimalist cabin see everything i've just said about volvo apply that here as well
and it has a 286 mile range which you would think would be would be plenty for for many of us
yeah nobody's now surprising uh or an arrival date uh but it is expected to come in at under
30 000 pounds um uh at the at the lower end of the range um which which may seem cheaper than
cheaper than its competitors right limo to again remember um as far as importing into the uk
is all run by stilantis um so again it's one of those ones a bit like byd it's one of those
ones you would say because there is a chance of longevity um there especially you know stilantis
stuff people in north america when we say stilantis and longevity and probably you have a good
old chuckle and yeah it doesn't look like it uh but here in europe um it's a slightly different story
last new new car news this we've been doing the um the stories from evo uh the videos have been doing
the rounds of the social media for a few weeks longer um the n-core series one um so it's the
carbon fiber body 400 horsepower twin turbo v8 homage to the original s1 loads of spray
yours for at least half a million pounds it's about 430 000 plus a donor esprit v8
to go underneath it or um the esprit v8 alone will cost you what will cost you 30 to 60 000
pounds and then there's all the various taxes so hence that's how the the half a million is reached
what it is is the idea of a an s1 lotus esprit kind of distilled and distilled down
and it manages not to be a pastiche actually it's very very interesting um lots of products
have been upgraded of course a six-point piston front calipers um from a ap racing um the billet
machine down your many wheels 17 inch at the front 18 at the rear um etc etc etc so and one of the
nice things actually about that is that the wheels don't look too big so often or restaurant
ones the wheels just look they're too wide they're too shiny they're too tall there's not
enough tire these guys have managed to avoid uh to avoid all of that the fact that they they've
involved a lot of former group lotus employees has probably helped um as well but generally it's
gegeiro's original shape uh with with a lot of more the detailing is more modern so the the
headlamps are a slimmer line the the the real lights are sort of sat in the led and very very
streamlined and thin and and i believe they're milled from solid acrylic and or polycarbon
whatever um and that kind of thing so it's that kind of thing the the devil is in the detail
and that's what seems to have been done here the first um sort of pre prod the vehicles have
been showing off for a white and very much instead of a spy who love me spec my only thing is i would
like some kind of contrast downside uh just to sort of emphasize where that that body seam is
but that's a matter of personal choice i think i said that on social media sometime ago um
but it's kind of the original size ispry size all these things
interior of course you can have whatever the heck you want in the interior the one shown here has
it's a lovely wooden gear knob it has um just played seats uh all these kind of things that you
could get in in in a sprees and i think that's a really nice thing to bring forward to the homage
um i like this i like this a lot um i don't know if i could ever bring myself to spend the
money on it but i really like it and even the little flat why like this stuff like even
the little flat display that replaces all the dials but which does have you know dials on it
roll and whatever even the shape of that and the surround um mimics the shape of the original
of the original cars of the of the sprees the touch pounds and whatever else that form the
buttons they're in kind of the same place as they would be on the original there's some really
nice inspired takes throughout this really really tidy so yeah yeah i like that i like that a lot
super cool
in two points of interest and this week's lunchtime read is it's one from sort of the middle of
january it was written by a us journalist she used to be an ultimate journalist she's uh but
she she does that much less now it's a really cool photojournalist book um photojournalist style
book recently it's victoria scott um she she was blindsided by a press release i think
is what happened and the resulting article called alright which rich oh he's gonna censor me
which rich people uh commissioned these rolls races and the word is not people um then uh
then yes yes it was it was powered by at rolls races as she says rolls races version of their
Spotify wrapped or as they call it bespoke 2025 trends and innovations um and sort of goes through
some of these and just just the the ridiculousness of them when the world is the world um and just
in some places where the it's great to have money but it wouldn't it be good to have
up some taste as well uh type of things especially the gamer one have a look have a read it's
really nice it's really well written uh it's it's really good as as victoria stuff generally is
i said generally it is it's not there's no generally about it um so do go have a
a read of that because it's it's well worth five to ten minutes of your time and some cool pictures
out of street rolls races list of the week this week comes from haggartiers by nathan
chadwick uh and it's titled tiny but mighty titchy 1990s japanese gems uh there's a whole list of the
of course there's a list of them that's why it's a list of the week for goodness sakes al and it's
been a very long day um lots of k cars many of which you've heard of some of which you might not
have but from these tiny sports cars i'm going to choose the honda beat i've always liked the
honda beat i would love to try a honda beat at some point um goodness knows quite how um
but yes i just liked a tiny little mid-engine um it was almost time for us as a child so this was
like when when when was it launched 1989 ish it was about that 88 i had drawn something which
was very similar to this and then like a week two weeks later i you know my copy of auto car appeared
in the post and there was the honda beat which was almost the same as what i drew and that
that made me all incredibly happy and and to be honest that that's where a lot of my love
affair from the honda beat comes from um it was just that absolute coincidence um but yeah
really cool i really want to try that loads of other fun stuff in here too um
um most of which wasn't sold uh in the uk something that was slightly but not all the way
it's a good one go take a pic uh let's know what you what you like to let uh let folks at haggity do
know as well because uh because then they'll keep on writing lists and commissioning articles like
that which we can then share with you which then you can like and so the way
we tell you about it to keep motoring journalists in jobs uh because we find it interesting and cool
and uh inspirational and finally this week
comes from petro blog the wonderful major gav um and it is titled hot wheels launches a brick
built honda civic e f and s 2000 so it turns out that honda have their honda that hot wheels
have their own their own um plastic block building kits um i assume they can do that because the
one that we're all familiar with has gone out of the patterns expired or something so they can
start to to to to leverage uh to leverage that but this matel brick shop speed series they've
launched two 132 scale uh buildable sets uh under that uh in in the past um a custom nine uh
nine 1990 honda civic e f and uh 2007 which is really that old honda s 2000 um so yes one step oh
yes it is isn't it that's cool there's one step on from the the well-known plastic brick building
company um that i was that i was dead not to name that folks i think is it for this week it's kind of
short i'm sorry you've had two of those on the two of those in a row um but uh but yeah just
busyness and to be honest the reason there's only been one of us each time uh for a change has
been because of the podcast uh and because we've each been off doing things that will turn into
that will turn into podcasts and content and hopefully stuff that you can uh enjoy in the
relatively near future no no special announcements this week so don't forget between now and next
week you can give us any feedback and share your thoughts with the show at motoringpodcast.com on
blue sky at motoring podcast on instagram and facebook and on the contact page of www.motoringpodcast.com
the hub of all our activities remember you can support us financially via patreon and please
leave a review and rating on apple podcast youtube definitely youtube uh or however your podcast
apps lets you do such a thing uh those of you do thank you very very much i do try to
acknowledge comment like um anything uh appropriate in the appropriate manner that comes through that way
um best way to get in touch with andrew uh probably going to be linked in still um
i get occasional rants about stuff he's seen on there um so that tells me that he's most likely
to be there so do look for him as uh andrew clues are on there or try cracked windspreen on
blue sky but um you're less likely to to to get hold of him um by that route uh as as for me
blue sky is about best um where i'm at a gp bradley that's b i a d le y dot p square b sky dot social
we will both be back next week until then i've been alan bradley all the hard work in the
background has been done by andrew clues and safe motoring
About this episode
A dive into the latest automotive news reveals Germany's new electric car grant aimed at boosting EV sales, with a focus on means testing. Volkswagen's restructuring raises questions about brand identity as they centralize decision-making. Renault's sales surge is attributed to their diverse powertrain strategy, while BYD enhances battery warranties to build consumer confidence. The episode also highlights the launch of the Volvo EX60, boasting impressive range and new technology, alongside a nod to the nostalgic Lotus Esprit homage. A mix of industry insights and product updates keeps the conversation engaging.
The German Government has reintroduced their electric car grant that is between €1500 and €6000. Criteria for eligibility include the vehicle’s size, buyer’s earnings and family size. To find out more, click this EV Powered article link here.
RENAULT BECOMES EUROPE’S NO.2 CAR COMPANY
Renault Group became the No.2 car maker in Europe after a jump in sales. By doing so they overtook Toyota. They increased their sales by 7.4%, which includes light commercial vehicles. Click this Autocar article link here, to read more.
BYD INCREASED BATTERY WARRANTY
BYD, the Chinese EV maker, has increased the warranty for their batteries to 155,000 miles. This increases from the previous 93,000 miles but still remains at eight years. To learn more, click this Motoring Research article link here.
SCOTTISH GOVERNMENT ALLOCATES £85M TO LOW CARBON PROGRAMMES
In the 2026/27 budget, from the Scottish Government, they announce that they will be allocating £85 million to ‘low carbon programmes’, with vague language about expanding public charging and support for low emission vehicles. The details, currently, are scant and it would be unwise to get too excited until knowing more. More can be found by clicking this electrive article link here.
If you like what we do, on this show, and think it is worth a £1.00, please consider supporting us via Patreon. Here is the link to that CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT THE PODCASTNEW NEW CAR NEWS -Volvo EX60
Volvo has unveiled their new electric SUV, the mid sized EX60. Boasting a ‘game-changing’ new platform and ‘radical in-car technology’. With a range of up to 503 miles, prices start at £56,850 and rise to £70,360. Click this Autocar article link here for more.
Leapmotor B05
Leapmotor has finally revealed the interior of their B05 hatchback, at the recent Brussels Motor Show. Following the trend of a minimalist space, there are virtually no physical buttons to be seen. A maximum range of 285 miles is better than the Astra Electric but much less than the VW ID.3 and Kia EV4. The brand is hoping the price will sway buyers as it is expected to start below £30,000. Exact prices and availability timings are yet to be announced. Click this EV Powered article for more.
Encor S1
The Encor S1 is a restomod based on the Lotus Esprit Mk1. See, restomods don’t just need to be 911s! It comes with a carbon fibre body, a 400bhp V8 and will set you back at least £500,000. It looks fantastic. Click this EVO article link here, to see more.
LUNCHTIME WATCH: ALRIGHT, WHICH RICH DIPSH*TS COMMISSIONED THESE ROLLS-ROYCES
We are sharing a wonderful article from Victoria Scott,
